There's no such thing as an unhelpful suggestion. ^^ I'm very grateful that you took the time to consider our problem and come up with a proposed solution. It does seem like common sense that you should put darker text on a light BG and vice versa, it's just that it didn't work out on this particular screen. ;; I appreciate your response, though!

Ah... thought I would update on what I have been doing, since I haven't yet. Haven't done anything in the past couple days but I should be able to get a move on again tomorrow. Currently I am working on the female doll sprite. She has two pose variations, a full set of emotions with green, dark blue, light blue and brown eye variations, 5 hair styles all in black, blonde and brown. I currently need to tidy up some of the emotions to work with the three different skin tones I am doing and than tomorrow I will be starting on outfit ^o^

We also came to the decision to not do different poses for the sprites. Instead I will be modifying Masa's and Kyousuke's sprites into more neutral positions and focusing on a wider range of outfits. I don't think anyone would really miss the poses and I think a range of outfits would add more. Plus, it saves time lol. I have gained a couple other secondary sprites to do, but they are involved in some powerful moments in the story and so I'm really looking forward to doing them. So yeah, that's what I've been up to

Auro-Cyanide wrote:We also came to the decision to not do different poses for the sprites. Instead I will be modifying Masa's and Kyousuke's sprites into more neutral positions and focusing on a wider range of outfits. I don't think anyone would really miss the poses and I think a range of outfits would add more. Plus, it saves time lol.

Oh, actually, I think it's really unwise to cut poses of all things ^^;... poses express emotion a lot more than having one neutral pose change expressions all the time. Outfits are more like additional content which isn't really necessary most of the time. If anything, I would cut outfits if you really want to save time in some way.

Anna wrote:Oh, actually, I think it's really unwise to cut poses of all things ^^;... poses express emotion a lot more than having one neutral pose change expressions all the time. Outfits are more like additional content which isn't really necessary most of the time. If anything, I would cut outfits if you really want to save time in some way.

It's more like there are two sprites with a very... Well, one of them has his hand behind his head and the other one has his hand held out like he's a waiter offering you something to drink. They're the only two that are going to be fixed so that they have a more neutral pose that works for more situations. Everyone else only had one pose to begin with, so it's not so much "cutting" as "fixing". Doing multiple poses is a real time-sink whereas Auro likes (I think??) drawing clothes and we think it'll fit the game better. Also, the game goes through different seasons, so it would be very awkward for them to have only one or two outfits.

We were always going to have multiple outfits, I think, it was just a matter of whether or not we'd also have multiple poses. If there ends up being enough time (doubtful) we might go back and add more poses in, but I don't know if that will be possible. :C From what we've heard from initial feedback, our sprites express a lot more emotions than in most visual novels (the typical visual novel sprite just has happy, angry, sad, and surprised), so it didn't seem like anyone minded the lack of poses.

In other news, I released the first of our planned three betas very early this morning after pouring all my blood, sweat, and tears into it for the last few weeks. So hopefully over the next few weeks, the beta testers will be combing through the game and finding things for us to fix.

Camille wrote:Also, the game goes through different seasons, so it would be very awkward for them to have only one or two outfits.

Ah, I do understand your need for different clothes then ^^.

Camille wrote:We were always going to have multiple outfits, I think, it was just a matter of whether or not we'd also have multiple poses. If there ends up being enough time (doubtful) we might go back and add more poses in, but I don't know if that will be possible. :C From what we've heard from initial feedback, our sprites express a lot more emotions than in most visual novels (the typical visual novel sprite just has happy, angry, sad, and surprised), so it didn't seem like anyone minded the lack of poses.

Oh! So there is a production time-limit for this visual novel?

Anyway, the reason why I said I wouldn't cut them (or in this case, not draw them at all) is because when you're reading the novel from a text-box below the characters, the changing of an expression is subtle. People can miss it and it conveys less emotion when one pose is used for all of the expressions. It also makes everything look much more static.

Another disadvantage is that some expressions don't fit the sprite at all. For example, in Umineko, Battler looks weird when he's crying while still having his neutral pose (his neutral sprite is this: http://i40.tinypic.com/2cpbbl3.png ).

In the end it's up to you guys though, I just disagreed with it being something minor which no-one would miss.

Camille wrote:Also, the game goes through different seasons, so it would be very awkward for them to have only one or two outfits.

Ah, I do understand your need for different clothes then ^^.

Camille wrote:We were always going to have multiple outfits, I think, it was just a matter of whether or not we'd also have multiple poses. If there ends up being enough time (doubtful) we might go back and add more poses in, but I don't know if that will be possible. :C From what we've heard from initial feedback, our sprites express a lot more emotions than in most visual novels (the typical visual novel sprite just has happy, angry, sad, and surprised), so it didn't seem like anyone minded the lack of poses.

Oh! So there is a production time-limit for this visual novel?

Anyway, the reason why I said I wouldn't cut them (or in this case, not draw them at all) is because when you're reading the novel from a text-box below the characters, the changing of an expression is subtle. People can miss it and it conveys less emotion when one pose is used for all of the expressions. It also makes everything look much more static.

Another disadvantage is that some expressions don't fit the sprite at all. For example, in Umineko, Battler looks weird when he's crying while still having his neutral pose (his neutral sprite is this: http://i40.tinypic.com/2cpbbl3.png ).

In the end it's up to you guys though, I just disagreed with it being something minor which no-one would miss.

I did weigh it up a lot and measured it against what we want to do before I decided to put it on the very end of the maybe-to-do list. We don't have a strict production time-limit, but we want to get it done this year. We have other things we want to work on too

The reason I decided against it is because changing poses would be pretty time consuming, since I would have to redraw anything that changes (and the art style I'm using is time consuming as well) so we would be looking at a month at least just with what they already had, no added outfits. I would only have been able to do one, two at most pose changes, so the extent of emotion carried wouldn't be huge. Since those poses would probably extend outside of 'neutral' they would have limited emotions and times they could be used. I would also have only been able to do minor pose changes, eg. moving the arms because if I was drawing everything from scratch, it would be like adding on another 5 months. I don't think that time equalled an equivalent reward in game.

It does bother me somewhat, but because of the nature of VNs there are a lot of moments where the sprites don't match what is being said (unless I draw a CG for it), so it is something I have to let go of to a certain degree (how much I would love to draw everything out so it matched perfectly *u*). I'm pretty sure we will be experimenting with more dynamic graphics in a shorter game. We do have animated blinking and each character has, I dunno, probably about 20-50 legitimate expression combinations. I also wanted to add outfits because of the seasons and because it is a good way to express the characters personalities and intentions.

Since I work, I only have a limited amount of time to work on things as well, so I have to think carefully about where I spend my time and if it will be worth it. If we had a smaller cast or the sprites only wore one outfit I probably would definitely have done multiple poses. Here... it would be more of a challenge and something else would have to give out, either time, or CGs. So yeah, I can understand why you suggested it, and it will be something I will keep in mind, but right now I'm focusing on other things that will pay off more

Some tertiary characters using the female doll base. On an unrelated note, I'm going to be away for a while after Friday because I'm going on an overseas trip and access to the internet will be sporadic at best.

I'm going to assume that those sprites are shown with their relative heights the way they will be in the game? For the girl on the left, her torso looks too long for how short she is. Making her a little taller might be an easy way to solve it, but if you want her to stay that short, you should probably do something to make her torso look shorter than the sprite base's torso actually is. Mostly it's just her chest that appears to go down too far; the dress makes it the location of her waist/hips vague enough.

Again: I just wanted to say that I love the art and story of this VN. It just looks and feels so...brilliant. I can't describe how much I want to play this. My apologies if this is a useless post, I just wanted to say that I really am looking forward to this VN. It just looks and feels amazing Loved the demo and I really love what I see so far in this WIP thread. Summer just can't come soon enough <3

@Kura, Kinda, but they are arbitrary since, well, I didn't really think about it. Her upper torso looks too long even when she is the same height as the others. Why are her boobs so low! D: But yeah, I'll fix that. I think I might be splitting everything into different files. Maybe. I'm still not sure what will be the best way to work it out. Thanks for the tips on the clothes. I went for the v-neck look with a bit of off the sholder. I kind of was going for her to be casual but obviously doing it on purpose to catch someone's attention *waggles eyebrows*

@applegirl, Thanks, I'm glad you are looking forward to it! The betas have been going pretty good so far and everything is starting to come together nicely. Which means I'll have to kick my butt into high gear and get all this art done. We should have a nanoreno project out at the end of March to tide people over too.

I'm going to be heading off tomorrow night so on the off chance anyone wants to get in contact with me, email would be best. Or contact Camille, since she knows everything anyway. Bye! I'm going to take so many awesome photos of Malaysia! It will make great reference material.

I just want to say that this looks amazing so far!
I can't wait to see when it's done but looking at progress is just as fun! Please keep up the great work and hopefully soon we'll see the cast in action!
Awesome artworks~

A quick couple of non-art updates:
- Auro's in Malaysia now. She's going to be gone for a while so this thread will be pretty quiet for the time being. I still encourage people to join the Cyanide Tea forums, by the way, just to tune in to discussions there. We have this "Ask the Characters" topic that's pretty fun. Ever wanted to ask Shuuki about what hair care products he uses or ask Natsume how many hours of sleep he gets per night? Now's your chance!
- Beta round 1 is just about over. I put out 1.1 on the 17th mostly for bugfix-related stuff. Assuming I've taken care of all the major bugs, I will be moving into the next phase: writing Shuuki's chapter four. (which is by and large one of the most intense chapters for many reasons) I'll also be editing the first three chapters a bit before sending them to our German translator to work on.
- Lazcht is finishing up the updated map GUI, which will look pretty darn nifty when it's done, I think.
- Auro and I were both interviewed by VNs Now recently. You can read the whole thing here.

So basically, the rest of January is going to be fairly quiet with Auro gone. In February, I hope to finish Shuuki's chapter four and most of chapter five (which is going to be fairly short compared to the previous two chapters). Auro will also work on finishing up the sprites and BGs. That month's also when Auro and I are going to start planning our NaNoRenO game. We've already come up with the concept, characters, and SUPER basic outline, but we'll be fleshing out our plans more towards the middle to end of February. March, of course, will be spent working on that NaNoRenO game (though I'll still be writing for BCM, at that point Shuuki's story will be nearing the end, so it won't be as intensive to write). We're shooting to release the NaNoRenO game before March is over, of course. /o/ It's a pretty small game in terms of scope, so we're hoping that working on it will be a nice little break from BCM without totally distracting from it. That game will be the first official Cyanide Tea release, too. :33

After that, it's a matter of Auro working on CGs and me finishing the rest of the scripts. Pretty much all the big parts of the GUI/gameplay have already been coded, so from here on out it's mostly actual story and scriptwriting. We're still not exactly sure when the game will be done, but summer of 2012 sounds about right. (perhaps early fall if there are complications) Thanks for all the support thus far! <3

A quick preview of the new map and memento search button functions. The bedroom BG and some of the side image BGs I quickly scroll through on the map are still placeholders, but feature functionality is at 100%, I should think. Everything seen in this video is still subject to change.

This is what I've basically been working on alongside planning and writing chapter four. (you all are welcome to give feedback on the map, etc., since all elements are pretty easily changed at this point) As usual, the GUI was designed by Lazcht, who also colored the map. (I think she got a friend of hers to do the lineart for it) I did a lot of tweaking and all the coding.

I haven't gotten that far into the actual writing of chapter four yet--I've written a few thousand words, but am still in the introductory scenes--but things are progressing pretty well so far, I think. (the post-beta slump was a little tough, I suppose) Auro's back from Malaysia now, so we're both working on BCM plus planning our project for NaNoRenO next month. We're going to be very busy for a while. XD